Alan Lomax's Archives Digitized

The vision of the pioneering archivist and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax is being fulfilled posthumously, the New York Times reports. The massive music archive he collected over the years, which includes about 17,000 tracks, will be put online for streaming at the end of next month.

Lomax, who was the first to record acts like Muddy Waters and Woody Guthrie, would have turned 97 on Tuesday, and dedicated the last two decades of his life to the idea of a "global jukebox." In commemoration, the Global Jukebox imprint (named after his original project) will digitally release a 16-recording sampler titled The Alan Lomax Collection From the American Folklife Center that culls material from various phases of his career.

Lomax was known and celebrated for gathering and recording music from far-flung regions of the world, and for collecting dance footage globally. Thousands of hours of his film will be put online in addition to the music.